After more than a month of captivity in North Korea, Merrill Newman returned to his Bay Area home Saturday morning, ending a strange and tense journey to the land where he once fought in war.

His wife, Lee, and son, Jeff, were waiting for him at San Francisco International Airport when he stepped off a flight from Beijing shortly after 9 a.m. Looking tired but happy, a beaming Newman briefly addressed reporters, thanking Swedish diplomats in Pyongyang and the American Embassy in Beijing for helping secure his release.

"I'm delighted to be home," Newman, 85, told the crowd of journalists and curious travelers at the airport. "It's been a great homecoming, and I'm tired but ready to be with my family now. Thank you for all the support we got. We appreciate it."

Newman, dressed in a blue blazer and holding his wife's hand, answered no questions about his trip to North Korea or his treatment by its reclusive government, which regarded him as a war criminal.

Newman, a Palo Alto resident, served as an Army lieutenant in the Korean War, advising a group of Korean guerrilla fighters feared and despised by the North. The resentment apparently lingered long after a 1953 armistice brought fighting to a close.

Newman, who went on to become a high school teacher and Silicon Valley executive, made several trips back to South Korea in recent years, reconnecting with some of his former colleagues from the guerrilla unit. He planned to do so again in October.

Veterans surprised by trip

But this time, he wanted to visit North Korea first, taking a 10-day tour through the isolated country. His son told the New York Times that Newman simply wanted to see the place again, the way soldiers who fought in Vietnam sometimes return to that land. Some of Newman's South Korean friends, however, were surprised.

"Why did he go to North Korea?" Park Boo Seo, one of the former Kuwol guerrilla fighters asked the Associated Press. "The North Koreans still gnash their teeth at the Kuwol unit."

Indeed, tensions on the Korean peninsula have been particularly high this year, as the North's new leader, Kim Jong-Un, consolidates his control. This spring, his government even threatened nuclear war against the United States and South Korea in response to joint military exercises between the two allies.

Newman went ahead with his trip. On Oct. 26, as he was about to leave the country, he was pulled off an Asiana Airlines plane in Pyongyang and held in detention. In November, the North Korean government released a video showing Newman reading a confession for "crimes against the Korean people," a statement widely viewed as coerced.

North Korean officials accused him of trying to meet with members of his old guerrilla unit still living in the North. But Kuwol veterans told the Associated Press that all of their colleagues settled in South Korea after the war.

The North has a history of detaining American visitors, although most have eventually been released. The country is still holding Kenneth Bae, a Christian missionary who was sentenced this spring to 15 years of labor for allegedly encouraging North Korean citizens to revolt.

U.S. officials urged the Pyongyang government to free Newman on humanitarian grounds. The North's official news agency reported Saturday that the government decided to release Newman due to his age and medical condition, noting that he had appropriately apologized for his alleged crimes. Newman has multiple prescriptions for heart and lung problems, his wife told the New York Times. The North deported him to Beijing.

Declines ride on Air Force Two

Vice President Joe Biden, visiting Seoul, offered Newman a ride back to the United States on Air Force Two. But Newman declined, taking a direct flight from Beijing to San Francisco instead.

His arrival brought relief to friends, who had spent 42 anxious days waiting for his return.

"I am totally thrilled to hear of Merrill's release, with an exclamation mark!" former Stanford University Professor Bob Hamrdla said in a voice mail. Hamrdla had accompanied Newman on the trip to North Korea.